Judge warns on ageing hippies and marijuana

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Aged hippies failed to recognise the wreckage caused by
marijuana, a judge said yesterday in jailing a 70-year-old sex
offender and drug supplier.

Justice Bernard Teague sentenced the man to more than six years'
jail after he admitted sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl while
giving her a massage.

The offender, a self-taught alternative healer, had "groomed"
the troubled teenager by listening to her problems, Justice Teague
said.

The man, a small-time drug trafficker, had shown her his
backyard cannabis plants and had given her marijuana.

He had also massaged her ankle after she sprained it in 2002. On
one occasion, he took her to dinner, gave her wine and later
massaged her again at his eastern suburbs home.

Justice Teague said the man sexually assaulted the girl after
telling her the actions he was taking were part of his
practice.

"You have been described before me as an aged hippie," he told
the man, who listened through earphones in the Supreme Court
dock.

"It seems that too many aged hippies choose to wear
rose-coloured glasses," Justice Teague said. "They choose not to
see the wreckage caused by marijuana which is so often the evidence
before sentencing judges."

The man pleaded guilty to the sexual penetration of a child
under 16. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking
cannabis, two of cultivating it and one of supplying it to a
child.

Justice Teague jailed the man for six years and one month. He
fixed a non-parole period of two-and-a-half years.

Police found the man had resumed cultivating and trafficking
marijuana 15 months after he was initially interviewed. Part of the
delay was caused by police action against the girl and her
boyfriend, who stole marijuana from the man after the assault.

Justice Teague said the girl had intended to take the marijuana
to the authorities to get the man into trouble.